


Prompt: Valkyrie Valour

by EssayOfThoughts



Series: MCU Maximoff Oneshots [30]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Norse Religion & Lore, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Codependency, Fix-It, Gen, Post-Canon Fix-It, Valkyrie OC's, sort of - they are drawn from myth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 03:22:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5692693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kára is getting frustrated. This soul is silver and has maintained the bright shade of its blue even in the grey lands of death before passing up and on to Valhalla. This soul, she knows, <i>must</i> go there, she had watched this man die, saving lives with his death, heard the howl of grief his shield-maiden sister had given and <i>knows</i>, even without Skuld’s saying, that this one is made for more than life alone can give.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prompt: Valkyrie Valour

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for a prompt on my tumblr which is readable [Here](http://essayofthoughts.tumblr.com/post/137056647810/aou-maximoff-twins-prompt-a-year-has-passed-since).

**i.**  
Wanda both has not moved on and she has. She no longer spends so long sat at her brother’s grave, though she likes to sit by it after nightmares - the closest she can get to her brother curled around her and stroking his fingers through her hair - and she talks more with the team. She does not need to count backwards from one hundred in the language of the day before a job in order to stay calm without the reassurance of her brother’s presence, but she still seems tense when they have to fight, and Vision chooses to stay close to her to ensure she is not left alone with her shouting thoughts.

He can see how loud and lasting her grief is, that it will last even as she begins to take steps forward.

By a year she seems more cheerful, and though she still has nightly -mares she is not so tense and her grief not quite so loud. Vision can see the scab of it on the edge of her mind when he watches through the Mind Stone, and knows it will undoubtedly scar.

 

* * *

 

 **ii.**  
Kára is getting frustrated. This soul is silver and has maintained the bright shade of its blue even in the grey lands of death before passing up and on to Valhalla. This soul, she knows, _must_  go there, she had watched this man die, saving lives with his death, heard the howl of grief his shield-maiden sister had given and _knows_ , even without Skuld’s saying, that this one is made for more than life alone can give.

“You must come,” she says again, and soothes her horse beneath her. Hrímfaxi, (out of the Hrímfaxi which rode Nótt’s way through the sky each night) is as silver as the soul, with eyes as blue, and she had selected him in the hope that familiarity might help. 

The soul stands firm above where his body is buried, beside where his sister reads as the fingers of her free hand trace over the letters of the gravestone. The fingers of his hand ghost through her hair, and in the physical world a wind gently ruffles through.

Kára is starting to think that she should have taken the red-brown-and-gold son of Freyr’s Blóðughófi from his stall instead, and led this soul away on his sister’s colours.

 

* * *

 

 **iii.**  
Sometimes Wanda thinks she can feel her brother nearby, after nightmares. She thinks, most of the time, that it is because she is sitting at his grave, curled up by the gravestone and reading by the light of her scarlet. Pietro always knew when she was hurting, and always did what he could to help.

She supposes that, even after death, that aspect of her twin would not change.

 _Half a soul_ , she thinks. _I am half a person with half my soul gone_.

 

* * *

 

 **iv.**  
Kára has been working to try to take this soul to Valhalla for almost a year and a half when the soul finally speaks. He is smiling, she thinks, and shining with the blue that by all rights should have faded until he arrived in Valhalla.

“I cannot leave,” he says, and his hand is ghosting through his sister’s hair again. “Not until she says I should. Not until she moves on.”

Kára sets her jaw. “Has she not?” she asks. “She sits at your grave, aye, she seeks your company after your death, aye, but she lives her own life come daybreak, and travels where you cannot: to a future.”

The soul is, somehow, still smiling. “We are still one soul,” he says. “When those born together die apart they are not going to move on alone, are they?”

The metal is cool under her fingers as she lifts her helmet off. “They do,” she says, and sets her helmet on the pommel of her saddle, and combs out the curls of her hair. “I travelled on when my sister died, and became this. There are others amongst our ranks who have done similarly. There are others at Valhalla who have done the same.”

The soul is _still_  smiling. “Did they all go without trouble?”

“No,” Kára admits. “But they all came in time and many without the souls they considered a part of their own.”

“I cannot leave,” the soul repeats. “Not until my sister decides we are not of the same. She still does, so I will stay.”

There is the whisper of hair against metal as Kára replaces her helm. “Then so too shall I.”

 

* * *

 

 **v.**  
Wanda still does not like the fight - she does not think she ever will, after losing Pietro - but she understands the necessity of battle when it is brought, and weaves her scarlet to burgundy and blood when conflict comes. She dares not lose another as she did Pietro, and finding her mind interlinking more to Vision’s makes her fight only harder.

“You do not need to protect me,” Vision says one day. “I am made with vibranium in my cells; I am almost indestructible.”

“Ultron was vibranium,” Wanda says. “I still tore his heart out.”

Vision smiles just slightly, gentle and reassuring, not as condescending as it might be from another. “There are no others with your gifts, Wanda. I think I am quite safe.”

Wanda shrugs. “What of the stone? Thor said someone seeks it.”

“Yes,” Vision says, “But I do not think anyone will be able to face someone who bears the other stones.”

“Ask him,” Wanda suggests. “If they are a threat we should know.”

 

* * *

 

 **vi.**  
It has been almost a year and eight months when Herja rides down to Kára. 

“Helgi misses you,” she says, “I will take the watch if you wish to see him.”

Kára shakes her head. “This is my duty,” she says, “And this soul assigned to me.”

Herja watches the soul, reading over the shoulder of his sister, hands ghosting through her hair as in the physical world a breeze runs through. “He is one who fought alongside and against the Lord Thor, is he not? Have you considered asking he for help?”

Kára huffs a laugh even as Hrímfaxi does the same beneath her, and grates one hoof over the grass. “He will want him back, I fear. The Lord Thor is known to care too much for the fleeting lives of those as mortal as humans.”

“Mayhaps,” Herja replies. “But mayhaps it would ease this soul to hear news of his sister that he has not had to glean from watching alone. He cannot hear her now.”

“He can,” Kára replies. “At the least he can hear her mind. That connection has been muted but yet remains. I do not think even the Lady Hel could cut it, and fear even Valhalla might not.”

Herja smiles. “They are a strong pair then,” she says. “We may respect our quarries for that at least.” She turns her horse - a golden thing, likely out of Gullfaxi - to ride away. “I shall tell Helgi you remain afield, and that you return when your quarry does, whichever way he does return.”

“I hope not to life,” Kára admits. “His presence might cheer some at Valhalla.”

 

* * *

 

 **vii.**  
Later, when Herja is long gone and the soul’s sister has returned inside the soul goes to stand with Kára. 

“One of your sisters?” he asks.

“Herja,” Kára replies. “She of devastation.”

“And you are?” he asks. He has not spoken as much in long months and Kára  is uncertain as to why. All the same she answers.

“I am Kára,” she says. “She of wildness, of storms and of curls.”

“Your hair?” he asks.

“Like yours,” she replies.

The soul laughs, blue dancing as brightly as ever. “I am Pietro,” he says, offering his hand. “I’ll try not to resent being called a quarry.”

Kára takes his hand, and is surprised by the warmth of it, in the cool veil of death. “I have seen how fast you were,” she says. “Were you still living I think even the All-Father’s Sleipnir would worry to catch you.”

Pietro laughs again, and it troubles Kára how much alive he sounds.

 

* * *

 

 **viii.**  
Vision is quiet when Wanda goes to speak to him.

“Is something the matter?” she asks, and waits for his reply without sitting.

“News,” he says. “From Thor.”

“Oh?” Wanda moves to sit. “What does he say?”

“That he has not found more news on the stones.”

Wanda frowns. “Nothing more? That should not alone be so troubling for you to be so silent.”

“No,” Vision says, “There was more.” He pauses, seems to ponder, and Wanda tries not to peer pre-emptively into the neurons and data-banks of his mind. “Apparently your brother’s soul has been causing the Valkyries trouble. He will not pass on.”

 

* * *

 

 **ix.**  
Wanda is silent. Wanda is scarlet. Wanda is spinning, spinning outwards, mind rising, reaching, delving, digging, and she does not feel as Vision lifts her and carries her outside. She feels, barely, as she is set down on the grass of her brother’s grave. Her mind is searching, searching beyond the bright realm of the physical minds she sees around her every day.

She reaches into the grey realm between them all and seeks the grey-blue-silver of her brother.

 

* * *

 

 **x.**  
Kára has never been quite so surprised as scarlet appears in their grey realm. It is bright, as bright as blood, as bright as the blue of Pietro, as bright as the soul of his sister, still safe within her body, bright in a way that the Dead should not be.

She notices, easily, how widely Pietro is smiling as the scarlet dances around him, dives into him, wraps around him like a vine about a tree. Pietro’s hands are gentle in the scarlet that wraps them, gentle in the way they ghost through his sister’s hair. “I’m here,” he murmurs. “I’m here, Wanda.”

There is some communication, there _must_  be, for Pietro’s smile widens, and Kára can see in the world of the physical as his sister smiles even as her eyes are closed. 

Then they open, and are filled with the scarlet dancing around Pietro’s soul.

“I’m sorry,” Pietro says, and it is, for once, almost apologetic. “I do not think I will be going with you just yet.”

Kára watches as red lashes outwards, rips up sod and soil, and searches downward for a coffin. “You cannot-” she starts.

“ _I_ cannot,” Pietro agrees, and smiles. “I am quite dead. Wanda however,” and he looks so glad it is almost worshipful. “Wanda can do _anything_.”

 

* * *

 

 **xi.**  
Pietro follows the coffin which holds his body as it follows along behind his sister, and Kára follows on too, drawn by curiosity even as she angers over protecting this soul from that which might have claimed in it her stead.

“Was it a waste then, to wait for your soul?” she asks, and does not mark how Hrímfaxi’s hooves clop over the hard floors of the building.

“Probably,” Pietro admits. “I don’t think I could ever abandon Wanda.”

It is probably a good thing that there is a helmet visor covering her face, so Pietro does not see as Kára rolls her eyes. “What will they do?”

“The Cradle,” Pietro says, and he is smiling again. “They will restore my body, and Wanda will show my mind the way into my body and my soul with it.”

“And you will live and be stuck speaking poor English to others and training while your sister is already adjusted.”

Pietro shrugs. “I can learn from Wanda’s mind. Besides, I will be with my sister again. I will be _alive_  again. Why should anything else matter?”

Kára eyes him through the gap of her visor. “You think things too simply, Pietro.”

The soul shrugs again. “Why should I think complexly? That’s what Wanda does.”

 

* * *

 

 **xii.**  
Pietro does not remember much of the process, as Wanda wraps his mind with hers and shows him the way back to his body. He does remember Kára still watching, and occasionally casting baffled glances towards Vision standing by Wanda, and offering her support as she quakes under the weight of two minds within her skull.

“Vision,” Pietro says. “Your Thor helped to make him.”

“I know,” Kára says. “I did not know he cared so much for a mortal. He is as long-lived as we.”

Pietro laughs in the moments before Wanda finally pulls his soul through their bond. “He cares for everyone and everything,” he says. “Ask him.”

Then the world is red and silver and he opens his eyes in the Cradle.

 

* * *

 

 **xiii.**  
“Why did you wait?” Wanda asks in Sokovian, embracing him. “I would not have begrudged you moving on.”

From the corner of his eye Pietro thinks he can still see Kára astride her horse, the odd silver creature which shone like ice, but she is only watching, her head cocked slightly to one side. He tightens his arms around his sister, and runs his fingers through her hair. He is almost startled to _feel_  it. “I could not abandon you,” he says. “We are halves of a whole.”

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> See [Here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1ra) and [Here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_valkyrie_names) for the reason of my selection of Kára's name; it should be relatively self-evident. Read more about Hrímfaxi [Here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinfaxi_and_Hr%C3%ADmfaxi), and about Blóðughófi [Here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bl%C3%B3%C3%B0ugh%C3%B3fi), Herja [Here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herja), and Gullfaxi [Here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gullfaxi).
> 
> Comments are always appreciated!


End file.
